'In every Mercedes car, there’s a huge part of India'

Thomas Weber, advisor to Daimler said Indian knowledge is built into the cars. Safety, he said, is one of the things key to the Mercedes brand.Shilpa Phadnis&Sujit John | TNN | March 10, 2017, 16:01 IST

Weber said Indian knowledge is built into the cars. Safety, he said, is one of the things key to the Mercedes brand. This, he said, can only be ensured by results from the simulation side, which is done in India. India, for instance, does the simulations for the crash performance.

Seat development of compacts is done completely in India, together with suppliers located in India. “There are seat guys in India, so why do it using high cost engineers in Silicon Valley!” says Weber, who spoke to TOI on a visit to Bengaluru when he was still a board member.

India has Daimler’s biggest R&D presence outside of home country Germany. Of the overall 17,000 R&D employees, 2,000 are in India, mostly in Bengaluru, but also in Pune.

It has 600 R&D employees in China and 300 in the US. The India centre – which has a total strength of 4,000, including those part of company’s IT team – is also the fastest growing, and is expected to add 1,000 more in 2017.

The India centre – called Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India (MBRDI) – started in 1996, and works on the development for Daimler buses and trucks, and Mercedes-Benz cars and vans.

The centre works in areas like computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided engineering (CAE), electrical & electronics, and IT. It is now playing a crucial role in Mercedes-Benz cars’ strategic focus that goes by the abbreviation CASE – connected cars, autonomous driving, (car) sharing, and electric drive.

India has Daimler’s biggest R&D presence outside of home country Germany. Of the overall 17,000 R&D employees, 2,000 are in India, mostly in Bengaluru, but also in Pune.

“More and more software based technologies are emerging, so the future looks bright for India. China is there, Silicon Valley is there. But specific talents in R&D, IT in India are really, really strong, and we will use them,” Weber said.

Weber was a key sponsor of the India R&D activity for 13 years. “I was always deeply convinced an Indian hub was important. When I look back, I’m even more convinced that part of our success is because we have India on board,” he said.

At a separate event where there were also several journalists from Europe, one asked Weber: “Can we say the artists are in Silicon Valley while Bangalore has the craftsmen who implement it?” Weber’s reply was striking: “That’s the process we started with, but it’s totally changed now. These guys are competitors of those in Silicon Valley. The game has changed.”

Manu Saale, MD of MBRDI, said the centre builds cutting edge algorithms. MBRDI has filed more than 250 patents in the past two years, 141 of those in 2016. The futuristic ideas, Saale said, may be thought of in mature markets where the customers are – like the roof of the car should open or the music should start when you wave your hand, or the car should recognize the driver.

“But behind every such fantasy, there is an algorithm that was developed, with huge amount of IP (intellectual property). Over the years, we have learnt to work offshore, think, conceptualize, simulate, test it until the point you take it to the market. People say, you don’t drive autonomous cars in India, you don’t even have the radar frequencies for that, how could you realize this piece of software! But Indian engineers have been doing it. The strength is in the mathematical, physics knowledge that Indian engineers bring,” Saale said.

For every rear seat occupant, in all Mercedes car lines, the safety mandate is in India. The engineers in India compute all the parameters for rear seat safety, computes every load case, and gives the final result.

The India team then participates in the testing in a crash hall somewhere in the world. If the test fails, then either the digital methods are improved, or the design department would be told to change, say, the seat belt or seat position.

Work on certain doors and chassis are also among the work India does. MBRDI is investing more and more in deep learning and artificial intelligence. “We are not responsible yet for an entire car line, but we can get there. A Mercedes S-Class coming out of India, why not!” said Saale.

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In 2018, automobile demand remained robust despite the slowdown overcast in the last three months of year. All segments reported strong double-digit growth in the calendar year ending December 31 except passenger vehicles which reported a growth of 5 per cent. Three-wheelers sales grew fastest followed by commercial vehicles, two-wheelers, and passenger vehicles. The overall automobile sales crossed 26.7 million units for the first time.

In 2018, automobile demand remained robust despite the slowdown overcast in the last three months of year. All segments reported strong double-digit growth in the calendar year ending December 31 except passenger vehicles which reported a growth of 5 per cent. Three-wheelers sales grew fastest followed by commercial vehicles, two-wheelers, and passenger vehicles. The overall automobile sales crossed 26.7 million units for the first time.